Merman
by celerity
Summary: Ever wondered how Will discovered the other way to travel between the worlds? ;) Seriously, this is my first effort and I'd appreciate any reviews.


Disclaimer: Certain characters and elements herein (i.e. the good ones) are taken from Philip Pullman's extraordinary 'His Dark Materials' series. I love these characters dearly but in the end they are only on loan, and are all © Philip Pullman. They are not being used here for personal gain and no attempt to do so should be made. The songs 'Merman' and 'Twinkle' belong to Tori Amos, and can be found respectively on 'No Boundaries: A Benefit for the Kosovar Refugees' and the frankly stunning album 'Boys For Pele'.

This is my first proper attempt at HDM fanfic. I hope you like it. Sara Whitrow is not me, she just stepped out of my head; if you have a problem with her and would rather she just stepped right back in again, I suggest you take that up with her, and good luck to you. I'm very much a learner at this; but I hope you enjoy this story for what it is. (And if you haven't read all the HDM books I suggest you do so before reading on…) ;) I'd appreciate any reviews or other feedback - you can email me if you want to ask me about any aspect of this story. *sigh* Will, this one's for you.

~ Celerity, 27/7/01

'Sure that star can twinkle and you're watching it do

Boy so hard, boy so hard, but I know a girl twice as hard

And I'm sure, said I'm sure she's watching it too

No matter what, I know she's watching that star…

But I can see that star when she twinkles and she twinkles

'Cause I sure can, that means I sure can

So hard, so hard…'

~ Tori Amos, 'Twinkle'

You are not going to believe this.

And that, of course, is the final and crushing irony of this whole experience. I have on my hands perhaps the most bizarre, the most gasp-inducing, the juiciest piece of gossip that has ever existed – and if I ever tried to reveal it to anyone else the chances are high that not only would they not believe a word of it, but they would probably also have me locked up at Her Majesty's pleasure for the rest of my adult life. It's enough to make you believe in divine retribution.

But my thinking is that at least by writing it down I may be reaffirming my sanity.

Right…

My name is Sara Whitrow. Until approximately a week ago, I had a normal job at a normal hospital. Sure, we got the odd stoned hippy or crazy old woman proclaiming the advent of doom, aliens or a Conservative government, but aside from that it was generally the kind of place you could trust to remain reassuringly boring. That is, as far as possible given the amount of blood and screaming that tended to congregate there on our more busy nights. But I digress.

I was the receptionist, which basically meant I got paid a pittance to deal with angry people demanding stitches, sutures and God knows what else, and also the other part of my job which involved running headlong through ridiculously busy corridors trying to locate whichever doctor or patient was in demand. Did I mention that the pay was terrible?

But enough of my problems. The hours were long, the work was hard, the ambience was frankly morbid, but it was a job. The only solace I got was my lunch-hour, during which I would head up about five flights of stairs (the lift was invariably out of order) to the canteen, where myself and a few other junior employees would have a precious sixty minutes to complain to each other about our salaries, our mothers, the weather, and then indulge in our favourite activity: gossip.

Now in the hospital there was a well-established resentment between the doctors and the junior employees such as myself. It was not explicit, but it was expressed in little things: the tone of a request, the speed of an errand, their general manner of condescension. Which, given that they were on average five times better educated and ten times richer than us, was fair enough, but that didn't stop our bitter little conversations hunched over cups of ghastly hospital coffee. However, we had discovered that there was no better solace for feeling inferior than knowing what the white coats got up to behind closed doors. Or, for that matter, behind their white coats. So, in quiet moments we had between busy spots, our little network of spies worked diligently away, and we discovered titbits of information that made our working hours bearable: that straight-laced Dr Harris had a German mistress whom he visited on Friday nights; that seemingly mousy Dr Philips was a Wiccan, and performed naked rituals with her coven on equinox nights; that back in the 1970s, Dr Cross had fronted a punk band called 'Satan's Curry House'. Of course, the chances that these were all utterly false was high, but that did nothing to lessen our enjoyment, and it was one of the few things that brightened up an otherwise humdrum day.

On this particular humdrum day it was shortly after lunchtime, and I was not feeling at my sparkling best. It was late June and it seemed the whole hospital was drowning in a wave of suffocating, heavy heat that the efforts of air-conditioning and a few feeble fans were unable to combat. The hospital lobby was crowded with people with sunstroke, people who had burnt themselves on barbecues, children who had fallen out of trees, all of them talking or crying and, it seemed, half of them at a time coming up to the desk to shout into my face that they were not being seen yet. To which all I could reply was that that was perfectly evident, there was no need to point it out to me, and that we were doing the best we could. I wonder what compulsion drives us to constantly say that. As if we were afraid that they thought we were having them on, and the doctors rushing to and fro like manic Duracell bunnies were not actually working, they were just keeping up appearances.

Anyway, in short, I was not happy. Add to this the fact that the mugginess of the air suggested that a storm was likely to break sometime this evening and I had no means of getting home other than walking, and you will no doubt have a good idea of my precise state of mind. So when a man in his fifties with a bright red face and an enormous floppy sunhat came up to the desk and decided to begin laying all the shortcomings of the NHS squarely at my door, I was hard pressed not to leap for his jugular. But, being too tired to argue, and much too tired to regale him with my prepared rant about the difficulties of my job, I mumbled something about finding him a doctor and escaped quickly to wander aimlessly along the halls, not sure where I was going but hoping that wherever it was, it was free of angry Middle Englanders in sunhats.

The corridor was crowded, and further congested by the trolleys of equipment lining the walls. Doctors and nurses in green scrubs sailed blithely past me, and I was beginning to consider making a break for it entirely when someone grabbed my arm.

I spun round to see Dr 'Sid Vicious' Cross, his large shiny glasses above a green surgical mask giving him a decidedly alien appearance. I had tried many times to imagine him with a blue Mohican, screaming obscenities into a microphone, but he was so resolutely dour and bald that I always failed. That day was no exception.

'Tell Dr Parry I want to see him in my office _now_,' he mumbled purposefully through the mask, and before I could protest he was striding bandy-legged down the corridor, his baggy scrubs flying out behind him like the cape of some radioactively disfigured Batman.

I stood seething for a moment, a hundred different scenarios involving Dr Cross and vats of noxious boiling oil racing through my head. Then I took a deep breath and set off along the corridor, the beginnings of a particularly malevolent and completely untrue rumour forming in my mind.

Dr William Parry, M.D., it should perhaps be mentioned at this stage, was one of the more enigmatic residents of my little world. He had escaped a good deal of our discussion by virtue of the fact that he lacked the condescending manner of some of his more obnoxious colleagues. But the very fact that he was so unassuming and kept himself to himself made him very interesting to us, because what a lifetime of indulging in gossip tells you is this: never trust the exterior. It's often those who are the quietest, who blend into the background, who have something to hide.

However, despite our frantic efforts we had never been able to turn up anything interesting. He lived with a friend who was in her fifties, which while unconventional was hardly the stuff office legends are made of. He was tall enough, dark enough and handsome enough to have excited the interest of many a junior nurse in his time, but other than that I knew hardly anything about him. I had talked to him briefly before, as I had all the doctors, and the thing that had struck me the most was a certain distractedness in his manner. He could be giving you every ounce of his attention, but still you would get the feeling that he was looking over your shoulder.

Anyway, on that day I was hoping to spin out my search for him as long as possible in order to avoid returning to the war-zone that was the front desk, but to my chagrin I found him near Dr Cross's office, in hospital scrubs with his perpetual semi-worried expression on his face.

'Dr Parry?'

He turned sharply, as if roused from a reverie. 'Yes?' he frowned.

'Dr Cross wants to see you in his office. _Now_,' I added, repeating faithfully.

'Right. Thanks.' He looked, if possible, more worried than usual. He turned and left.

At this stage I was not at all curious as to what Dr Cross could have had to say. I imagined it would be some matter of hospital policy that would bore me to tears, and I had no desire to hear it. But it so happened that at that moment I spotted my favourite patient, now minus sunhat but with his face looking like an overripe tomato ready to burst, pacing down the corridor towards me. Reluctant to face him again and more willing to take my chances with the wrath of Dr Cross, I sidled quickly down the corridor and ducked into the office, pulling the door quietly shut behind me.

The office was designed in two parts. The room I was in was a kind of filing-cabinet filled antechamber, where Dr Cross's vacant blonde secretary sat on those rare occasions that it wasn't her day off. Through the partially open frosted glass door was the office proper, where the two doctors sat unaware of my presence or my lucky escape. I thanked my stars that Dr Cross was the kind of pretentious fool who would want an office like this. It was fitting for a man who cared more about the number of initials after his name than the well-being of his patients. I perched carefully on the desk, keeping out of the line of sight of the door, and waited, thinking to leave when I was sure Sunhat Man had done his worst. I could hear Dr Cross getting agitated somewhere to my left.

'The fact remains, Dr Parry,' he spat, 'that you left the hospital for a whole hour in the middle of your shift on one of the busiest days of the year. That shows not only gross negligence on your part, but an unhealthy disregard for hospital protocol.' Dr Cross enjoyed using terms like 'negligence' and 'protocol'. They made him feel a lot more intelligent than he was.

'I have already told you, I arranged for Dr Philips to cover that part of my shift.' Dr Parry, his voice quiet but dangerous. 'That is perfectly acceptable under hospital regulations.'

Dr Cross seemed to ignore this. I could hear him pacing behind his desk. 'Dare I ask what you were doing that was so important that it came above the priority of your patients' welfare and the hospital's reputation?'

There was a long silence. 'That is a personal matter.'

Another pause. Then an exasperated sigh from Dr Cross. 'Dr Parry, if you do not give a fully valid and substantiated reason for your absence yesterday, I'm afraid I will have to set up a disciplinary hearing, and you will face the consequences.'

'I understand that.'

As I looked through the angled frosted glass I could see the blurred figure of Dr Cross leaning over his desk. Then he stood back. 'Very well.'

There was the sound of Dr Parry rising from his chair, and I suddenly realised my position and looked around frantically for another way out; but his preoccupation saved me, he strode past and out of the door oblivious. I sat frozen for a moment until I heard the squeak of leather as Dr Cross sat down, then I slipped out of the office and went back to the front desk, thinking about what I had heard.

* * *

The rest of the day passed in a haze of extreme heat and shouting. The patiently awaited storm broke in the early evening, right on cue, with an ominous rumble that announced I would get soaked on my way home. The irritation I had been feeling before had been amplified by the weather and the events of the day into a deep implacable sulk. At least the tide of patients had abated. I checked my watch. Half an hour to go.

Will Parry walked past the desk in a black overcoat and pushed one of the glass swing doors, disappearing into the rainy darkness.

Now when I tell you what I did next, I know what you're going to say. But let me justify myself a moment. The most enigmatic doctor in the entire hospital, about whom almost everyone had some wild theory or other, had been berated for an inexplicable absence relating to personal matters, and was now walking out of the hospital looking like he was under his own personal thundercloud. A more restrained person than myself would have been screaming to know what was going on.

Restraint, I must say, is not one of my stronger qualities. And so I decided to take my chances with the last half-hour, picked up my coat and headed out into the downpour.

One thing that is important to bear in mind when visualising the subsequent events is this: following people is not as easy as it seems. Of course, as I started I had a picture of a hundred bad espionage movies in my head, where the hero is able to follow someone through the dirty streets of, say, Beijing and end up back at the secret headquarters within five minutes. But alas, as with all too many things in life, the movies proved a poor guide. For a start, the conditions were hardly in my favour. It was both late and pouring down with rain, and weighed against the obvious advantages of darkness and the covering noise of the water was the fact that the streets were almost empty, and my heels clicked loudly on the pavement with every step. I soon realised that if I stood any chance of not being discovered I had to stay about a street behind him. It was cold, and my jacket was designed more for looks than practicality, and so I soon found myself shivering, soaked and feeling more than a little stupid.

But, as my mother used to say, I am stubborn to a fault; and what is more, I didn't much fancy the long walk to my flat at the other end of town, which I would face if I gave up. So, with the defiant persistence of someone who knows they have been a fool but is unwilling to face up to it, I continued to totter on in my heels, turning corners to catch glimpses of a silhouetted figure disappearing around the next. Occasionally I would think I had lost him altogether, but just as I was considering giving up I would hear his footsteps through the noise of the rain, and I would carry on, pulling my sodden hood around my head in a vain effort to save the plastered remains of my hairstyle. The quiet houses around me were beginning to settle down for the night, the lights gradually flicking off until only the street lamps lit my way.

Our bizarre dance led us in the end to an ordinary-looking apartment block. I watched from across the road as he pressed a button, said something inaudible into the speaker, opened the door and disappeared up the lit concrete stairs. The door swung to with a final bang, and the tattered remains of my sense of adventure left me with a jolt. What had I expected? Of course he was just going to walk home, like any sane person. And now, thanks to my misplaced curiosity, I faced a doubly long walk back to my flat in the still persistent rain. I walked back up the street, cursing. Just as I was resolving to punish myself with a long, hot bath, I heard a door closing.

I whirled round like a dervish to see the object of my curiosity walking off in the opposite direction, shoulders hunched against the rain…and carrying something which I couldn't make out through the rain and the dark. I nearly crowed aloud with triumph. Perhaps my little escapade hadn't been in vain after all.

I allowed him a good head start along the street, then continued my sub-007 antics as we progressed through the darkened town. The silence was almost eerie; apart from the occasional murmur of a TV set or the sound of muffled conversation, the only noises were the soft fall of the rain on the tarmac and my shoes as I walked. The buildings were by now almost completely dark; here and there a light shone in a curtained window, casting a wet, blurred glow with the streetlamps on the road. There was no moon. Above me, the clouds rumbled a little, but the thunder and lightning was past. Only the rain remained, and by this time I was so wet that it made no difference. I began to feel almost peaceful as I walked on. Oxford by night was like another world, with its own rarefied atmosphere and peculiar sights and sounds. I hugged my coat around myself, feeling that anything could happen.

The second leg of our journey ended, to my surprise, at the Botanics. I dimly remembered being dragged around them as a little girl, being delighted with the pigeons and the squirrels but bored by the endless array of plant life. The gardens were surrounded by a short, moss-covered wall, surmounted by tall black railings. The gate was closed and secured with a strong iron padlock, but he grasped the top railing and stepped up to the wall, then vaulted over and jumped down from the wall, landing on the grass and crouching to steady himself. Then he stood up and walked away, soon lost in the tangle of foliage.

I can't deny that I was becoming more intrigued, and more bemused, by the moment. A little thrill of excitement ran through me as I hurried to the gate, kicked off my unsteady shoes and lifted myself up onto the wall, ignoring the cold damp shock seeping through my thin tights. It took me a couple of tries and a great deal of assault from soaking leaves, but eventually I was over the fence and ankle-deep in rain-drenched grass.

I soon discovered that my task had become easier; he had left clear footprints which glittered in the pale light from a floodlit sign. I followed them, my own feet feeling increasingly like heavy ice blocks attached to my legs. All around was soaked vegetation; it glistened and gave out a wet fragrance that mingled with the smell of the damp earth and the dripping pine trees. Many of the flowers had closed up in the darkness, but here and there was a pale bloom open to the rain, its petals dotted with beads of moisture. A sleeping pigeon stirred in a tree. I had a sudden memory of putting seeds on my hand and holding my arm straight out, so that a pigeon would launch itself heavily, dig its red clawed feet into my hand and peck out the seeds, the beak like a blunt pinprick on my palm. My memories of the sunlit garden seemed increasingly at odds with the darkly alien paradise I tiptoed through now, like a guilty trespasser in someone else's dream.

And always, ahead of me like a fairytale breadcrumb-trail, the prints of his shoes. We had been heading towards the outer area of the gardens, the less well-trodden paths where the more timid tourists never headed. The plants here were less exotic, but no less all-embracing: if anything, they grew closer together, and I found myself having to duck under water-laden branches, the heavy drops shaken off onto my head and shoulders. Then, so suddenly I had to stop myself short and duck back into the foliage, I came upon him standing absolutely still in the middle of a little clearing. He was facing partly away from me, towards an old bench which stood ahead of me on my right. I could mark his misted breathing by the rise and fall of his shoulders, and I could also see clearly for the first time what he was carrying: a small leather pouch that looked like a scabbard for some kind of knife, black and polished so it had a dull sheen. As I watched he reached into it and took out an object – something dark and as long as his hand was wide, that as he turned it around seemed to have glittering threads running through it. I noticed that his hand was trembling, and also with surprise that two of his fingers, the fourth and the fifth, were missing.  
Then, as he passed the object to his right hand and lifted it into the air, I realised its identity. He grasped it in his hand like a weapon, and indeed that was what it was: the hilt of a knife, whose broken blade jutted about an inch out from the blackened end. The glittering threads were gold, and they ran through the wood picking out a design that I couldn't see.

I crouched in the shrubbery, the dampness soaking into my skirt and chilling my hands and feet. I was breathless, desperate, confused. All the madcap theories I had been working on in my head for the last few minutes had been confounded, and I was past knowing what to think or expect. But nothing in my life could have prepared me for what happened next.

He raised the broken knife and straightened his arm. Then he closed his eyes. A frown settled on his face as he moved the knife, then it dissipated like a storm lifting. He stood calm and purposeful, moving the broken stub as if he were searching for a place to cut the air. Then, tensing his face, he moved the blade directly across in a slash.

I will never forget the sound that knife made moving through the air. It was as if the entire universe were crying out against the wound it was trying to make: a cacophonous screeching, a stomach-churning ear-bursting grating like a thousand nails being dragged across the surface of Hell. I thrust my hands to my ears and fell sideways to meet the earth against my cheek, my scream drowned out by the demonic noise.

When I was next aware of myself, it was silent, aside from a wakened dog barking frantically in the distance, and the leaves rustling gently in the wind. I was still lying on my side in the earth, and through the screen of leaves I could see Will Parry, his face startlingly clear; he had dropped the knife, and perhaps what shocked me the most was that he looked on the verge of crying. He bit his lip, and I saw a dark drop of blood well up and fall like a tear to the grass.

I lay in the bushes gasping silently like a shellshock victim. My mind had taken in what I had just heard, and having no experience to deal with it had simply decided to pretend it had never happened. I closed my eyes against a pain I did not understand.

And a moment later opened them again, to be greeted by something which would change me and my worldview forever.

Standing before Will Parry in the clearing was a woman. I say that, not because it goes any way toward describing her, but because I was sure she was female. Beyond that, I was lost. If you were to ask me, say, her age, or the precise contours of her face, or the exact shade of her hair, I simply would not be able to tell you. She seemed to both crave and repel attention, so that looking at her was painful, but fulfilling at the same time. She was completely naked, although that was not something you noticed at first, and she seemed bathed in light, as though her own invisible sun shone on her from a distance. Behind her I caught a glimpse of pale feathers that made my already shattered mind cower away in incredulity. The rain didn't seem to touch her; indeed, it sluiced straight through her, like drops of molten gold in her light. Her expression was perhaps the most difficult of all. The only enduring impression I got from it was one of peace: but peace that has come through a lifetime of hard knowledge and a deep, deep understanding. Added to all this, she was tall, and dwarfed the man in his overcoat as he stood gazing her full in the face.

'You are wasting your time.' I don't even know if she opened her mouth. All I know is that the voice was painful to hear; but it was beautiful, and I found myself simultaneously cringing away and leaning nearer to hear more.

'I know.' Will Parry was staring directly at her, and whether the tears in his eyes were from hurt or something deeper I wasn't sure. It struck me that he wasn't the kind to look away from pain. The tone of his voice was too complex to decipher, but in the golden light from the angel his face was exhausted, angry, desperate.

The angel (I had tried to assimilate this identity into my brain, but failed miserably) sighed. Or at least, I don't remember her physically sighing, but the _idea_ of a sigh seemed to pass across the clearing, whispering through the boughs of the trees.

'The knife will never lead you to Lyra again.' That voice. 'You know that way is closed to you now.'

'I came here yesterday,' he said, turning away from her and gesturing round at the plants, the bushes, the grass. 'I came here and I sat for an hour, alone. That's all we have now. And if Cross gets his way we won't even have that any more, and she won't even know and she'll still come and sit here alone, not knowing I'm not here…' And he stopped pacing and walked to the bench, where he sat and buried his head in his hands.

There was silence. The angel watched him with what might have been compassion. He spoke again, his voice angry.

'Do you know,' he said, 'what it's like to sit here, knowing she's _there_ –' (he pointed next to him) 'and not being able to do a bloody thing about it?' He held the angel's gaze, although I could tell how much it hurt him. 'Do you have any idea?' he finished brokenly.

The angel did not speak for a while. In the midst of the turmoil in my brain a thought found its way in – she _didn't_ know. Just as my mind did somersaults just trying to perceive her, let alone imagine being her – to her, human experiences, the petty things which move us so deeply, are a mystery. But she had seen this, I was sure, many times before, and her compassion was real despite her lack of comprehension.

'You must find the other way to travel between the worlds. Speak to Mary,' the angel said. Will looked up, about to protest, but the angel moved towards him. She held out a hand – I could dimly see his face through it – and touched his brow. He closed his eyes, exhaling gently.

'She will be here in two nights' time. Mind that you meet her then.' The angel stepped backwards, and vanished.

With her departure, the spell which had held me there motionless was broken. I was aware of the chill all along my side where I lay, and that my feet were numb and the side of my face was in the earth. I remained still until I had seen him slowly get up, pick up the knife handle and the scabbard and leave the clearing. Then I picked myself up, dusted off the worst of the soil and left the gardens, picking up my shoes on the way. I made my way home with my teeth chattering and my mind numb.

* * *

The next day found me exhausted, with a bad cold and in mental turmoil. Back in the bustling normality of the hospital the whole experience seemed so vague and hallucinatory that I could almost have passed it off as a dream. But the fact remains that when something has happened to you, you _know _it has happened, and I knew the angel was real as well as I trusted my senses. Of course I had to confront Will Parry about what I had seen, if only to prove my own sanity; but how best to do it was something which eluded me. 'Hey, who was that shiny chick you were talking to the other night?' or 'I couldn't help noticing that you were conversing with a heavenly messenger yesterday, care to elaborate?' You don't need me to tell you that it's hard to say that kind of thing with a straight face, especially when you're a famously ditzy receptionist with a reputation for tall tales.

And so it was that, for the second time in as many nights, I found myself tottering through the darkness in a too-thin coat, peering round corners like an extra from a particularly bad episode of Columbo. I felt like something, somewhere, had gone deeply wrong in my life, and I should really find out what it was before I found myself sitting in a subway wearing newspapers and talking to dogs. I am still not sure what I was trying to do; whether I expected the encounter to be repeated, or just wanted to reassure myself that it wouldn't be; but somehow I ended up on the street opposite him as he walked up to the door of his apartment block and was about to press the buzzer. A few seconds longer and he would be inside, and I would still be ignorant, and have to face another sleepless night trying to persuade myself I was not crazy.

Perhaps that thought was what pushed me, I'm not sure, but it was almost a surprise to me when I heard my voice, echoing across the empty street.

'I saw you talking to the angel last night.'

God, it sounded ridiculous. The buildings, the street, the cloud-ridden sky, they all seemed to stare down at me, their solid normalness defying my words. For a horrible moment I was convinced I had imagined it all, and he was going to report me as a deranged stalker and send me to an asylum. But as I spoke, he tensed up, like a cat; then, very slowly, he turned around until he stood framed in the lit doorway, looking across at me. I couldn't read his expression. Seconds ticked by.

'I suppose you'd like an explanation.'

His tone was inexpressive. I nodded, and began to walk unsteadily across the road. Then three things happened at once. I saw, rather than heard, him yell and begin to run towards me; I was suddenly conscious of something insanely bright at the edge of my vision; and something caught me hard on the leg as I started to run. I remember feeling, not fear or pain, just a dull sinking feeling: just when I thought things could not possibly get any worse, along came karma and added another weight to the pile. I must have been someone really nasty in another life. I flopped unsteadily to the ground, my head reeling and the light still flashing when I closed my eyes. For a minute everything seemed exaggerated. The damp smell of the road was almost overpowering, and in the light from the doorway I was aware of two things; Will Parry doing something to my leg and talking to me, and bizarrely, a large dark cat stalking around me, lifting its paws carefully out of the wet. I closed my eyes and wished for oblivion.

Then, as things began slowly to return to normal, the pain took up residence in my leg, starting from where I'd been hit and spreading out in a fiery circle like some hellish skimming-stone. I gasped, tears filling my eyes. I had been half-murmuring assurances that I was all right, but I began to doubt the accuracy of my own reports.

'It's not broken.' Will, crouched on the wet ground in his suit, his overcoat beginning to soak up the wetness and darken. He looked at me with furrowed brow. 'I'll take you to the hospital.'

He began to stand up. My leg was really starting to hurt, but I couldn't face being alone in a car with a man I'd not only followed home but had made an unbelievable fool of myself in front of.

'Really, I'm fine,' I said, trying not to flinch. 'I don't need to go to hospital. I can go home. I'm just…' I looked up at him, trying to show how inexpressibly stupid I felt, and that going home and curling up in an inconspicuous corner would suit me just fine.

He seemed to understand. At least, he nodded, considered me with a frown for a moment, then looked off down the street as if he had caught sight of a particularly rare species of moth at the far end.

'We should probably get off the road,' he said finally, and he helped me up and we staggered together the short distance to his doorway.

'I should…probably get home,' I said when we got there, desperate to escape.

'Don't be stupid,' he said bluntly. 'You're soaked, you're freezing, you've got at least a bad bruise on that leg if not a fracture.' He was watching me seriously, and I found myself thinking that he didn't look like a crackpot, or a hippie, or any of the things I had imagined he might be. He simply looked tired, and deeply sad. I remembered his words on the bench and felt a shiver of compassion for a sorrow I couldn't comprehend. He looked away.

I had been planning one last protest, but the thought of an ice pack and some hot coffee was beginning to be attractive, and besides he didn't seem in the mood to brook an argument. He was turning to press the buzzer when I noticed something that made me blink fiercely. When I opened my eyes, to my consternation, it was still there.

'I'm sorry, I don't like to pry,' I said, still feeling a little fragile, 'but are you aware that there appears to be an preternaturally large cat rubbing up against your door?' When I'm nervous I have a tendency to use big words.

He didn't even look down. He just stared at me, eyes incredulously wide, and I was struck by the feeling that this was somewhat unfair. Here was a man who conversed with angels and was being followed by some kind of panther, and he was looking at me like _I_ was the one with the problem.

'You can see Kirjava?' he said in disbelief.

It took me a while to prepare a satisfactory response to this.

'She can,' rejoined the cat, fixing me with green eyes wide in the smoke-grey fur.

I stared.

'Well,' I replied after some time, still staring at the enigmatic animal, 'if that is the name generally given to unusually loquacious felines, I'd have to agree.'

A tentative grin flitted briefly across his face like a pigeon through no-man's land, before his customary frown settled there again. 'I suppose you'd like an explanation,' he said, for the second time that night.

I didn't think that really needed an answer.

He sighed, then pressed the buzzer and spoke into it briefly. There was a hum and a click as the door unlocked. 'Come on,' he said, and leaning on his arm I struggled up the cold concrete stairs to the second floor.

* * *

The door was opened by a woman in her fifties wearing an oversized blue shirt and a shabby dressing gown, who stared at me in shock for a moment, then, taking in the fact that I was cold, wet and in desperate need of caffeine, took me by the shoulders and guided me to an armchair beside a glowing electric fire. As if having strange women turn up on her doorstep was a daily occurrence, she calmly asked me if I would like some coffee, while Will disappeared somewhere and came back with a large blue ice-pack, which I grabbed like a kid with a toy and pressed to my leg. An evil-looking purple bruise was beginning to develop down the side of my calf. The cold made the pain worse, but I gritted my teeth and held it there.

The woman returned with three steaming mugs, one of which she handed to me. It was almost painfully hot, but I clutched it hungrily in my numb hands.

'Now,' said the woman, slowly sitting down on the sofa and sipping the scalding coffee, 'who are you? And what happened?'

'Sara Whitrow,' I said, feeling the hot drink beginning to warm me. 'I had an unfortunate meeting with a truck.'

She smiled. 'I'm sorry to hear that.' She offered me her hand. 'I'm Mary Malone, I'm Will's friend.'

I set down my drink reluctantly and shook her hand. She had an open, friendly face, and the impression I got from her was one of warm intelligence. I found myself wondering what their relationship was like. When I had first heard of Will's strange cohabitation habits I had thought that maybe he had some weird taste for older women, or that it was the next step up from living with his mother. Now I could see she was neither of those things; they were friends, and their comfortable familiarity was evident as he slung his coat over the back of the sofa and slumped down next to her, taking the mug she offered him.

I picked up my coffee again and began to drink, then paused in mid-gulp. The inexplicable cat was still watching me from the end of the sofa.

'I'm sorry to say this just as things were beginning to seem normal,' I said, carefully putting down the mug on a little rimmed table, 'but you still haven't explained the cat. Or the angel.'

Mary's eyes widened over the rim of her cup; she lowered it slowly, looking first at me and then at Will in shock.

'I was about to. I'm sorry,' he said to me, and then to Mary, 'She saw me talking to Xaphania last night.'

'Aah,' said Mary, turning back to me with a new interest. Then something else struck her. 'But how can you see Kirjava?'

That name again. I felt the conversation was beginning to overtake me. 'Really, I'd love to be able to tell you, but it might help a little if I knew what the hell is going on,' I said, a little more heatedly than I had intended.

'Of course,' said Mary, realising how utterly out of my depth I was. 'I'm sorry, it's just that we've never been in the position of…of having to explain this to anyone before.' She looked to Will for help.

He took a deep breath, staring into his coffee. 'This could take a while.'

I told him I was willing to wait.

'All right.' He looked directly at me. 'First of all, Kirjava's not a cat; she's my demon.'

Oh my God. They were Satanists. They were Satanists, and here I was alone with them in their flat, probably about to end up as some kind of unholy sacrifice. A reddish splodge in the carpet pattern began to look more menacing. Maybe the coffee was drugged.

'It's not what you're thinking of,' he said. 'It's…' He paused, turning the mug around in his hands. 'Like your soul,' he concluded. 'We all have one, but in this world they're mostly inside people, not separate.'

I took it in. I nodded wisely like I understood. I took another long draught of coffee, and then I said, 'I'm sorry. Did you just say "in _this_ world"?'

He slumped back against the sofa, laughing quietly. 'Like I said, this may take a while.'

And so, as I sat there in the armchair sipping my coffee, the humming fire glowing beside, they told me. Will sat, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet as he spoke quietly but clearly. Mary leant on the arm of the sofa, her cheek propped on her hand, and talked earnestly, her crows'-footed eyes shining in the reflected light. Occasionally the cat, sitting inscrutably like an Egyptian monolith with tail twined around its feet, would add a detail or correct an observation. Their story was a strange one indeed, and one that I will not attempt to repeat; if only because I am sure no one would believe it. But as I heard their tale, as I saw the conviction and the real emotions – the pain, the fear, the anger, the love – relived on their faces, I found my scepticism falling away, and replacing it a sense of painful wonder not unlike what I had felt when I beheld the angel.

I don't know how long I sat in their thrall; only that by the time they had finished my coffee mug was empty and cold, and the first hints of summer dawn were lightening the grey landscape outside. After the talking was done, the only sound was the quiet hum of the electric fire. I found myself lost for words.

We sat for a while in silence as I tried to take in the enormity of what I had just heard.

I was surprised when I realised what the first thing I wanted to say was. 'Can I see the knife?'

Will got up and disappeared through one of the interior doors, then returned holding the leather scabbard I had seen him carrying in the gardens. I leant forward and took it, turning it around in my hands, then carefully reached inside.

'Take care,' said Will. 'The pieces are still sharp.'

Cautiously, I lifted out the wooden hilt. It was partly carbonised, I supposed from the bear's repair. The bear, I reminded my numbed brain, who walked and talked and wore armour and worked metal. The tarnished threads, I could see now as I turned it around, marked two angels, one with wings folded, one with wings upraised. The broken shard of handle was as blackened as the rest, but the sides tapered to a bright edge so thin I could not see where it ended. I picked out a lock of my hair and experimentally pressed the blade against it, and it came off in my hand before I had even put pressure on it. I stared at the cleanly cut ends in wonder.

Will was watching me with a peculiar look on his face that I couldn't decipher. I put the handle back into the scabbard and handed it back. He rubbed the leather with his thumb, as though picking off an invisible stain.

'I'm going to get some sleep,' he said finally, turning away. 'I've got a morning shift tomorrow.' He checked his watch and smiled ruefully. 'Today.'

I began to stand up, feeling I should go, but Mary sat me back down, picking up the empty mug. 'Don't even think about it,' she said, smiling. 'It's far too late. You're welcome to stay here.'

'Absolutely,' said Will, stifling a yawn. He turned to go into his room, then paused and turned back. 'And…I'm sorry. For dragging you into all this.' He gave a tired, apologetic smile.

'That's okay. My fault,' I reminded him.

He grinned and left, the cat following him on graceful feet.

* * *

Mary replenished the coffee mugs and returned, tucking her legs underneath her as she sat. 'There's one thing I still don't understand,' said Mary.

'_You _don't understand?' I said incredulously.

She smiled. 'Believe it or not. How come you can see Kirjava?'

I thought back. 'I was…it was after I'd been hit by the car. I was sitting on the road, and I thought I saw her…then we got to the door and she was still there.' I shrugged.

'Hmm,' said Mary, running her finger around the edge of her cup thoughtfully. 'It must have been because you were disoriented. Maybe that had the same effect as the state of mind…' I stared at her, praying my bafflement showed on my face. 'To see someone's dæmon you have to be in a certain state of mind. I could teach you to see yours if you like.' I gave her a look that I hoped said that was a step I was not quite ready for.

For a moment we sat in companiable silence, the scent of the coffee combining with the fresh smell of rain that came through a half-open window. My mind raced through everything I had heard, and found that two things remained the same: it was no more explicable, and I still believed every word.

'I can imagine how strange this must be for you,' said Mary, looking over her cup.

I stared back doubtfully.

She laughed. 'Believe me, I would understand perfectly if you didn't believe a word. I mean, I used to be a physicist. If someone had come to me with a tale like the one we just told you, I'd need some pretty strong evidence.'

'An angel and a talking cat good enough for you?'

She grinned. 'Maybe. Maybe not.'

I swirled the coffee idly. 'But that's just it. I _do_ believe you. I mean –' I looked out of the window at the chunky silhouettes of the buildings. 'I used to think I had a pretty good sense of what was plausible and what wasn't. I'm not…some gullible fool who'll believe anything. I mean, I hear about ten rumours a day at work, and I can normally work out which are true and which are…less true. But your story…' I turned back to her, trying to convey the turmoil going on in my mind.

She nodded. 'I know. It was the same for me when Lyra turned up. I – I _wanted_ to believe her, but at the same time I was afraid of being fooled. And then when she turned out to be the real thing…' She shook her head. 'I was excited, but terrified at the same time. That's the power of an unexpected truth.'

We were silent a while longer. Somewhere outside a bell tolled faintly.

'What was Lyra like?'

Mary looked up, then paused. 'Indescribable,' she said. 'No, she was…she had this amazing conviction in everything she did. She had a way of being so certain about something that everyone around her listened. I've never seen anyone so determined. She was more determined than Will, even.' She looked down at the floor, rubbing the carpet with her toe. 'Will didn't tell you everything about him and Lyra.'

I remembered his words in the garden. 'Were they in love?'

'Yes,' said Mary. 'Very much.' She looked towards Will's door, and spoke more quietly. 'It affected him deeply, you can imagine. But he's not always as bad as this. I think – I think he's been clinging to the hope, for a long time, of seeing her again, and now he's beginning to realise that hope may be in vain.'

'The angel…' I struggled to remember what I had seen. 'She told him to talk to you.'

'Yes. There is another way of travelling between the worlds, not bodily but with your consciousness. I managed it by mistake while I was in the world of the mulefa.' She seemed more focused now as she explained, emphasising her words as she tapped the arm of the sofa. 'If Will could learn this way to travel, then…he could see Lyra again. They wouldn't be together, not in a physical sense, but they could communicate for the first time in years.'

'Have you taught him?'

'It's hard to teach someone something you're not sure how you did yourself. But I've tried, and he's tried to learn all these years, but he never managed it. I think he was beginning to give up.'

'But the angel was telling him to try again.'

'Yes. And from what Will told me, Lyra will be in the garden tomorrow night, and that's when he's supposed to try.'

I thought for a moment, then looked back at her. 'Do you think he'll be able to do it?'

She considered, leaning her chin on her fist. 'I don't know,' she murmured. 'From how demoralised he's been these past few weeks, I'd say no. But those two – they're like no other people I've ever met. I think they're capable of anything.'

We sat there in the advancing light, drinking the last of our coffee. I mulled over everything I had heard, my mind full to bursting. Mary put down her mug and yawned widely. I checked my watch.

'Well,' I said, stifling a cavernous yawn, 'I have to be at the hospital in two hours, and I have to clean myself up and change my clothes, so I'd better be off.'

'Are you sure? Don't they let you take days off at that place?'

'That's the problem with working in a medical establishment. Minor injuries are rarely accepted as an excuse.'

She smiled. 'If you're sure. Want a lift home?'

'No need, it's not far,' I lied. The truth was, Mary looked on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion. 'Thanks for the coffee…and the explanation. It's been…bizarre.'

Mary laughed. 'Any time.'

I turned to the door, and she padded sleepily to her bedroom. As I was about to leave, a rumpled-looking Will emerged from his room, still dressed in creased shirt and trousers.

He smiled. 'I suppose I'll see you at work.'

'Yes.'

'Sorry for getting you run over.'

'Sorry for following you home and depleting your coffee reserves,' I replied.

He shook his head laughingly and started towards the kitchen.

'Dr Parry?'

He turned around, tired, messy-haired, bleary-eyed, with the embarrassment of a man uncomfortable with formality. 'Call me Will.'

'Will, I hope you find her,' I said, and meant it. I paused, holding the doorframe as I watched him, then left closing the door behind me.

* * *

The walk home was a painful experience. The bruise on my leg was worse than I had thought, and my shoes were doing nothing to help. In the end I kicked them off and carried them the rest of the way, picking my way over the cold damp tarmac, wincing whenever I hit a badly placed stone.

But all that was nothing compared to what was going on inside my head. While I was there I had been too overwhelmed to truly take in what they had said; but now I remembered their words and went over them again and again, recalling their conviction, their honesty. I remembered, too, the angel in the garden, and the feeling I had got from her presence. I looked around me at the buildings, the staid grey familiarity of my settled world. The thought that, as close as I could touch, there might be witches, or armoured bears, or mulefa, seemed ridiculous; but still I could not bring myself to doubt their words. Not after what I had seen.

And then, there was the matter of dæmons. I had been bewildered to notice, during their telling of the tale, that the bizarre cat reminded me of Will. Surface appearances apart, there was something in her manner, in her speaking, that was undoubtedly his; and yet she was no mere extension of him, there was more to her than that. And Mary had said that one of these bemusing creatures walked beside us all. It was a strange thought to imagine mine, in whatever form it might take, accompanying me as I passed through seemingly empty streets.

And Will, and his Lyra. He had not dwelled on their meeting, their relationship or their parting in his telling. And I understood why. I didn't think he'd ever tell anyone about the whole of his time with Lyra. Those memories were sacred to them both; they were all they had. I had a sudden vision of a tear-stricken boy being forced to close the only door between himself and his love, and a flicker of the pain they must have felt stabbed at my heart.

By the time I reached my flat I had little over an hour to get ready for work. I showered and dressed quickly and made myself a bacon fry-up. As I left the flat I checked my reflection in the mirror. There were bags under my eyes and I looked exhausted, weary, drained; but there was more than that. The flippant concerns of a few days ago seemed meaningless. What I had been through in the last few days had changed me, and I wasn't sure I could ever live my life the same way again.

With that disturbing thought ringing in my mind, I left limping for the hospital.

The ordinariness of the working day's rhythm was jarring, especially after two sleepless nights. I reflected on the kind of stress leave I could get for unexpected encounters and culture shock. I'm sure that many people that day must have felt like shooting me for my vacant stares and my habit of looking over their shoulders to see if I could spot Will, my only reminder that the last two days had not been my own deranged fantasy. I saw him only once, frowning over a patient release form, but he walked off without seeing me and I was left to handle both the deluge of patients and my own increasing mental unease by myself. The temperature had increased, and as the use of suncream had failed to show a proportional rise, a never-ending queue of beetroot-coloured complainants rolled in through the doors. Like a production line, I found myself thinking, and the thought depressed me all the more.

I had never been so glad to see the clock hands advancing. My shift was drawing to a close when I saw Will leave the hospital. I knew exactly where he was going; and this time I couldn't follow him. This journey was for him and Lyra.

I walked out of the hospital that day knowing somehow that I would never enter it again.

That night, I was sleepless. I lay on my side in the heat, windows flung open and curtains fluttering in the breeze. I ran over and over the last few days in my mind, until Dust-dæmons-angels-mulefa-bears chased each other round and round my brain like in a demented slideshow. I thought, long and hard, not only about them but also about myself. I considered my life, my goals, my outlook – and found myself dissatisfied with where I was going.

Unable to stand it any longer, I got up, pulled on a shirt, jeans and a coat, and walked out into the clear starlit night.

* * *

I found him where I had expected him to be, sitting silent on the bench, gaze lifted to the stars. I walked tentatively over the grass and sat down slowly on the grey wood next to him.

'Did you talk to her?'

He nodded, not taking his attention from the sky. And I could feel it; in his very bearing there was the sense of a weight having been lifted, and for the first time since meeting him I would not have been afraid to guess that he was happy.

'What was it like?' I hazarded, trying unsuccessfully to imagine conversing with someone's consciousness.

It took him a while to answer. 'Strange,' he said, thoughtfully. 'And beautiful.'

I didn't need to ask him what he meant. I had seen my share of strange and beautiful things in the past few days.

My attention wandered around the garden. It had the same ethereal atmosphere I had felt the last time I was there. The plants crouched in humped and striking shapes around the border, their waxy leaves having a dull sheen in the moonlight.

'What was it like, having to leave her?' I asked quietly.

Again, he was silent for a long while. He dropped his gaze to the ground.

'Terrible,' he answered, and the way he said it made me feel angry that people used the same word to describe petty things like lousy weather, or bad holidays.

'But…there was no other choice,' he continued, his eyes still on the grass. 'Staying together would have been a selfish act.'

'I don't know, I think everyone should have the right to at least one selfish act,' I said, half-smiling.

He shook his head, the hint of an ironic smile crossing his lips. 'Not us.'

For the second time, I felt a fragment of their pain. I closed my eyes.

'What it came down to,' he went on, 'was choosing between harming the world, just a little, and harming ourselves. However much you argue that, you can't justify it. And besides, we were the only ones who knew. We have to do as much as we can, in our worlds, to help people to make the most of their lives.' He took a deep, sighing breath and looked upwards again. 'Sometimes I lose sight of that.'

I turned his words over and over in my mind. A strange excitement was building in me, and it stemmed from his story, and his words, and what I had been thinking, sleepless in my flat.

'Thank you,' I said impulsively.

He looked at me, half-smiling. 'What for?'

'For telling me all this.'

'You followed me,' he replied, his face unreadable. 'You found out for yourself.'

'Well, if you hadn't been so damn mysterious I would never have followed you, and I would never have found out,' I said.

He laughed quietly at that. 'Don't forget, there's a world where you didn't,' he reminded me.

That was a confusing thought.

'So you're glad you know?' he asked, looking at me sideways.

'Why do you ask?'

'I don't know, I think some people would prefer not to know. Not everyone would be comfortable with the idea of other worlds. Some might want ignorance. To live their lives as they're used to living them, in the world they're familiar with.'

I considered this for a moment.

'Not me.'

We sat motionless on the bench, hearing the breeze making the leaves rattle against each other in the dark. The stars twinkled down at us unseeing. Somewhere, Will's Lyra sat on another worn bench in another Oxford, watching the same heavens. I looked up, imagining a thousand other people in a hundred other worlds doing the same. A thousand listeners, a thousand stories waiting to be told.

I think that was the moment I made up my mind. A strange peace came over me as I reached for the arm of the bench, feeling the rough knotted wood beneath my fingertips. Strange but beautiful.

I got up and turned round. 'Thank you.'

He shifted his gaze from the firmament, looking amused. 'You said that.'

'I mean it.'

He glanced back upwards, then at me as I began to walk away. 'Thank _you_,' he said.

I laughed. 'For what? For stalking you?'

'For reminding me what I'm here for.'

We were silent for a moment. If I half-closed my eyes, if I imagined fiercely, I could almost see the Dust falling onto the leaves, the grass, ourselves, like a moving reflection of the tiny pinpricks of light above us. I took one last look, drinking in the scene, then raised my hand in ironic salutation and left him alone with the stars.

* * *

For those who are wondering…

Will Parry and Lyra Silvertongue used their newfound ability well, and remained each other's confidantes throughout their lifetimes.

Dr Cross was fired for incompetence, and decided to try his luck at re-entering the music scene.

Sara Whitrow handed in her notice at the hospital and caught the first plane to Norway, where she stayed with a friend before getting a job as a guide on the coastal sea voyages, travelling what is widely regarded as the most beautiful coastline in the world.

If you're still here, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it.

~ Celerity


End file.
